The need to back up important data has long been a concern of computing system administrators. Data backup was relatively simple in the days of mainframe computers. Data was often stored in a central data center, where it could easily be backed up to secondary storage, usually tape. The picture changed as personal computers became the dominant computing system and important data began to be distributed among many personal computers throughout an organization. Information system administrators were often faced with the difficult tasks of trying to educate and persuade personal computer users of the need and the procedures for data backup, as well as trying to make the backup process as simple and automatic as possible.
Recent trends are leading back to data centralization, particularly with the implementation of cloud computing systems. Large data centers may house various types of servers and data storage devices with almost incomprehensible capacity that may serve millions of users either individually or as part of one or more organizations. Despite the trend toward data centralization, the data backup task is more complex than ever. A primary complicating factor is the use of virtual machines. Virtual machines may be quickly and easily set up and reconfigured according to the immediate need, but have all but erased the relationship between the computer and physical storage devices.
From the point of view of a host system, a virtual machine may connect to one or more virtual disk files that house a representation of virtual disks accessed by the virtual machine. Backing up virtual machine data may at first appear to be a simple matter of backing up the virtual disk files. However, in some cases, a guest system that operates within a virtual machine may have a very different, more heterogeneous, view of the storage devices available for its use. For example, a virtual machine may share a virtual disk file with another virtual machine, or the guest system may access various types of storage area networks, virtual storage clusters, or application server data stores, all outside the view of the host system.
Accordingly, the instant disclosure identifies and addresses a need for additional and improved systems and methods for backing up heterogeneous virtual environments.